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Bible verses about hope
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Hope in the Bible is rarely optimism. The word usually appears in contexts of waiting, exile, illness or grief, and it often sits alongside honest complaint rather than replacing it.
Lamentations is a useful example. Its most quoted lines about mercy being new every morning sit in the middle of five poems about the destruction of a city. The hope is real, and so is the devastation around it.
The selection below keeps that balance. It includes passages of settled confidence and passages written by people who were still waiting, and each one links through to its chapter.
11 passages
Each shows its reference and translation, and links to the chapter it comes from.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope in the power of the Holy Spirit.
21This I recall to my mind; therefore I have hope. 22It is because of the LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail. 23They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
3Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; 4and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.
For I know the thoughts that I think towards you,” says the LORD, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future.
Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen.
but those who wait for the LORD will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.
I wait for the LORD. My soul waits. I hope in his word.
24For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees? 25But if we hope for that which we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
5My soul, wait in silence for God alone, for my expectation is from him. 6He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I will not be shaken.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible British Edition, which is in the public domain. “World English Bible” is a trademark of eBible.org.